The author describes and comments on developments that have taken place since Vatican II with regard to teaching authority. Among subjects exercising such authority he treats episcopal conferences and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Among objects of definitive teaching he treats truths that are not revealed but necessarily connected with revealed truth.
The article outlines and critiques three important arguments advanced by those who hold that the Catholic magisterium teaches that there should be no mission to the Jewish people. The author raises two important background issues: invincible ignorance and the difference between supersessionism and fulfillment. He argues that the trajectory of magisterial teaching from Vatican II
The author suggests that Gavin D’Costa needs, first, to take seriously the history of the Christian contribution to Jewish suffering, which cannot be parenthesized as outside history, and, second, to reflect on the positive significance of the Jewish no to Jesus (Moltmann), since both Jews and Christians share the anticipation of the Messiah. The author
Some ambiguity remains in the official Catholic understanding of dialogue and mission, but the basic thrust of Vatican II Catholicism definitely leans toward a nonmissionizing position with regard to Jews. This seems evident in the several statements on Christian-Jewish relations beginning with the conciliar text Nostra aetate and continuing in papal statements and the writings
Two very different churchmen, Riccoldo da Montecroce and Nicholas of Cusa, though separated by time and place, were affected by a similar catastrophe: the fall of a Christian capital to Muslim forces. Both responded by seeking heaven’s help to end interreligious strife, but Riccoldo wrote letters full of questions to the church triumphant, while Nicholas
Pius XI called the mutual perfection of spouses “the chief reason and purpose” of marriage, thereby opening the door for a consideration of the virtues spouses may seek in marriage. The article shows that for Augustine marriage is an instrumental good, serving the larger end of friendship, and that for Aquinas the bond of spouses—potentially
The article shows how the role of Peter as the official witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ continues to be neglected by such scholars as Martin Hengel, Christian Grappe, and Rudolf Pesch. Paul, Mark, Luke (in both his Gospel and Acts), and John offer historical and theological grounds for interpreting Peter’s primary (but not
Tyconius, a fourth-century Donatist, believed that the Bible showed the church as composed of two parts, the righteous and the sinners, who will be clearly separated only at the final judgment. This doctrine belongs to a shared Jewish and Christian tradition attested to in Romans, the third-century Christian Jewish Didascalia apostolorum, Tyconius’s Christian contemporaries in
The author traces an interesting development in Jean-Luc Marion’s thought, from explicit rejection of Karl Rahner’s thought to strong affinities with it. Marion’s early theology aligns itself with Hans Urs von Balthasar’s, making a later turn to Rahner seem impossible. But in his phenomenological trilogy and newer theological reflections, Marion opens to a Rahnerian perspective,
In his study of metaphysics, Analogia entis, Erich Przywara presents service (Dienst) as the link between the analogy of being and a vision of human nature as essentially sent by God into creation. This account informs many of Przywara’s spiritual writings, especially his commentaries on Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises and his studies of the Jesuit charism.
